Agriculture played a significant role in consolidating the domestic political system after 1956. The rapid development of the Hungarian agricultural sector's performance contributed significantly to the country's relations with the economically developed regions of the world, with the so-called Hungarian model incorporating backyard farming into large-scale agriculture. However, this progress was achieved through an arduous road to development, resulting in internationally recognised vocational training standards in agriculture, particularly in higher agricultural education. Since the second half of the 1960s, there has been a noticeable development in the agricultural sector in Hungary. It has managed to preserve the creative traditions of its historical peasantry to a certain extent. The Debrecen agricultural higher education had a decisive role in the ambitious development of Hungarian agriculture. István Bencsik was an outstanding player in this process, actively contributing to the material and intellectual foundation of higher education in Debrecen. His work later impacted the agriculture of Tiszántúl and the wider region.

László Kádár started his adademic carreer at the Lajos Kossuth University in 1947 and was a distinguised professor untill his retirement (1978). In the academic year 1952-54 he functioned as the dean of the Faculty of  Natural Sciences. In the next year (1954/55) he became the rector of the University Lajos Kossuth.

Lajos Fekete, Hungarian Royal Minister Counsellor, Forestry Academy professor is a leading figure in higher forestry education, who achieved indefeasible results in creating Hungarian language education and the Hungarian forestry language. Between 1872 and 1891, he headed the Department of Phytology and Silviculture at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Mining and Forestry in Selmecbánya, and from 1891 until his retirement he headed the Department of Forest Management. He played an important role in the organisation of the Academy campus, the construction of new educational buildings and the development and furnishing of the botanical gardens, as well as in the compilation and development of collections related to the subjects he taught (zoology, entomology, botany, climatology and soil science). Hungarian experiments in forestry began to take institutional form in 1897/98, and Lajos Fekete was responsible for this, as well as for the idea of establishing forestry education on a secondary level. Although he had already exceeded the possible age of retirement in 1894, his tireless work ethic kept him in the Academy. He enjoyed the confidence of the Academy's teaching staff and served as vice-principal in the academic year 1892/93, then as director in the academic years 1897/98, 1898/1899 and 1899/1900, and was also head of the forestry department. At the age of 69, on 1 October 1906, he was retired at his own request, because of his failing eyesight towards the end of his life. Thus, the last serving teacher of the first faculty of the Forestry Academy left the academy chair. On this occasion, he was awarded the title of Minister Counsellor in recognition of his services. In 1910, six years before his death, he received the highest recognition for his work, being accepted as a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. There is no branch of forestry science in which his work has not left a lasting mark. Despite this extremely productive and diversified career, which produced outstanding achievements in all fields, posterity has treated and still treats Lajos Fekete, whose work and human behaviour can stand as an example to us all, rather cruel.

The world-famous theologian professor spent a significant part of his life in Debrecen. Between 1928 and 1932, he studied at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Debrecen, where he graduated, and in 1942 he received his doctorate in theology. At the end of 1945, he was appointed public extraordinary professor at the same faculty, and in the summer of 1949, he was appointed public ordinary professor. In the academic year 1949/50, as Dean of the Faculty of Theology, he was responsible for the establishment of the organizational structure of the Debrecen Theological Academy of the Tiszántúli Church District, which had been separated from the university by government action and had become an independent institution. In 1966, the church leadership transferred Pákozdy and his department from Debrecen to the Reformed Theological Academy in Budapest, where he taught future pastors for about two decades. Professor Pákozdy, a religious historian, has been awarded honorary doctorates by two foreign universities for his scholarly research on the Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and for his translation of the Bible into Hungarian. In the twilight of his life, obtaining the Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences degree was made possible.

The Jesuits founded a grammar school in Olomouc in 1566, adding a philosophy faculty in 1576 and a theology faculty in 1582. The document describing the Jesuit educational system, Ratio et institutio studiorum, divided education into three stages, the highest of which was called studia superiora, and included philosophy and theology. From the second year onwards, students studied mathematics, astronomy and geography, and in the third year, from 1637 onwards, ethics. The Jesuits did not pay much attention to the teaching of the natural sciences, as these subjects undermined the authority of the Church and contradicted fundamental Church dogma. As a result, in the second half of the 17th century and the early 18th century, only very sporadic research and education in the sciences developed. Nevertheless, the University of Olomouc did have professors engaged in mathematical, physical and astronomical research, including a number of foreign-born scientists. In scholastic disputations, topics approved by the ecclesiastical authorities, mostly controversial, were discussed. Nonetheless, we do find here scientific topics in philosophy, biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics, although not in as large a number as would have been desirable.

The Department of Dermatology at the University of Debrecen celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2021. However, the year 2021 did not allow us celebrate this important anniversary properly, due to the COVID pandemic, so the festive meeting in honor of the Centenary and this commemorative article were organized and completed in the spring of 2023. History of the past 100 years of the Department of Dermatology is presented reviewing the main developmental steps in patient care, education, and research, remembering the legacy of our former colleagues and directors, furthermore to provide an opportunity to all employees of the University and independent readers to gain insights into this interesting, more than hundred years’ medical history of dermatology in Debrecen. 

The regime change brought about significant changes in the field of book publishing, particularly in the publishing of textbooks and lecture notes. However, even from the 1990s, it is still not easy to find readily available statistical data on the emerging university publishers, their activities, and operations. The work in this direction at domestic universities is far from uniform, both in terms of organization and economic structure, as well as the completed task groups. In this study, I present the environment influencing the currently operating university publishing workshops and publishers, and begin to take stock of them, while also providing a detailed introduction to the Debrecen University Press.

An Experiment to Reconstruction. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the law academies in Hungary and Transylvania played an important role in the training of the intellectuals of the multi-ethnic Carpathian Basin, especially in the training of officials. Perhaps the most unusual of these institutions was the History of the Academy of Law in Sibiu. To the best of our knowledge, the following data archive is the first attempt to reconstruct the composition of the teaching staff of the Academy of Law in Sibiu over the slightly more than four decades of its existence. The compilation is based on available printed and archival sources.

At the University of Debrecen, French-language student acting began with the drama courses held by Judit Lukovszki at the Department of French Studies. As a result of the growing interest the group, whose members were mainly French major students, was given a name in 1985: École des Bouffons. The Bouffons set at least one play on stage every year, made guest appearances at domestic and foreign theatre festivals, and undertook the organization of four theatre meetings between 1998 and 2002 in Debrecen. The Bouffons, apparently at the height of its success, ceased to exist in 2002, the year of the last theatre meeting, due to the lack of the students’ interest. In addition to an outline of the group's history, this paper intends to commemorate the former players

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, we commemorate Gyula Walleshausen, an outstanding and dedicated authority in the Hungarian librarianship and the first great generation of librarians after 1945, and in addition, one of the most important researchers in the history of Hungarian agricultural education, agricultural higher education and agricultural vocational training. In the course of his work as a librarian and historian, he respected, analysed with his competent knowledge and transformed the historical values of the past into volumes with scientific precision, thus preserving and handing them down to posterity. His writings on librarianship and university history are indispensable, important basic works for anyone researching a subject he studied or anyone who is simply interested in the history of a library issue, institution or discipline. In this article, we commemorate his entire career and his work, but above all his work as an agricultural historian.

In 2023 the University of Debrecen's Institute of English and American Studies celebrates the 85^th anniversary of the founding of the Department of English and thus the launching of an English studies degree program at the University of Debrecen. The history of the institute and the careers and achievements of its prominent figures have been the subject of a dedicated volume and a number of studies. The aim of the present roundtable is to explore, with the involvement of some of the former directors of the Institute, the less known aspects of its past that are of relevance for the history of the university as well, nuanced by personal recollections, linking the past with the present and the future. The discussion was initiated and moderated by Balázs Venkovits, the current director of the Institute, and involved four former directors, Zoltán Abádi Nagy, István Rácz, Péter Szaffkó and Zsolt Virágos.

Book review by Barta János. The book is about Count József Degenfeld- Schomberg and his efforts focusing on the foundation of the University of Debrecen. Editors: Gyögy Bazsa and Zsuzsa Jenei.

The publication covers the work of rectors of the University of Kolozsvár between 1872 and 1919. Editors: Miklós Róbert and Szabolcs Tóth.

Hilde De Ridder-Symoens, internatonally appretiated professor of Medieval History passed away 5th March 2023 at the age of 80. The Belgian professor was one of the most excellent university historian of her age.

The establishment of cardiac surgery in Debrecen is closely interlinked with thoracic surgery. This activity started and continued for many decades at the Auguszta Sanatorium, later the University of Debrecen's Department of Surgery II, which housed thoracic surgery at the time. In the Auguszta Sanatorium, which was nationalised after World War II, a thoracic surgery department was established in 1948, under the direction of Dr. József Schnitzler, whose professional interests in the 1960s turned towards cardiac surgery. He found a suitable partner for his groundbreaking goal in the pioneering work of Hungarian cardiac surgery, Dr. Árpád Eisert, a leading surgeon of the Jósa András County Hospital in Nyíregyháza. As a result of their exemplary professional cooperation, the first closed heart surgery was performed in Debrecen in 1963. The heart-lung machine required for cardiopulmonary bypass necessary to start open heart operations was provided by a donation from Béla Köteles, the son of Hungarian emigrants born in America, who founded his own instrument manufacturing company there. The first open heart surgery was performed by visiting professor Gábor Kovács from Szeged with Professor Schnitzler in 1968. In 1972, András Gömöry was entrusted with the management of cardiac surgery, and he succeeded in creating a team of highly qualified doctors and specialists even under the prevailing difficult circumstances. This, provided a solid basis for further development within the field. In 1983, after the retirement of Professor Schnitzler, Árpád Péterffy, Associate Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, was appointed as Head of the Department of Surgery II. Due to the knowledge, professional and work organisation experience he had gained abroad, cardiac surgery in Debrecen developed with great strides. The number of operations increased significantly, while the mortality rate was reduced by a third. He managed to acquire a new building for cardiac surgery in 1993, which created the opportunity for further development. The new building significantly improved the quantity and quality of cardiac surgery and made Debrecen an internationally recognised flagship of Hungarian cardiac surgery. Due to his work in international exchanges his students were able to improve their knowledge in Western European countries and elsewhere overseas. After his retirement in 2008, he continued to work as Professor Emeritus in our clinic, remaining fully committed to supporting our work, the development of cardiac surgery in Debrecen, and the preservation and enhancement of its reputation. As his professional successor, Associate Professor Tamás Szerafin was entrusted with the leadership of the cardiac surgery department. Together with his colleagues, their aim has been to preserve and further develop the patient-centred spirit and professional dedication of their predecessors, and to preserve the built heritage.